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Anne Mallek, curator for the Gamble House, prepared the upstairs-downstairs tour.
Grant Slater/KPCC
A communication system is wired to rooms throughout the Gamble Estate.
Grant Slater/KPCC
A period dress is on display in a bedroom at the Gamble House.
Grant Slater/KPCC
A tea service in the pantry of the Gamble House.
Grant Slater/KPCC
The attic is serving as a storage space for furniture from throughout the Gamble House as a part of the upstairs-downstairs tour.
Grant Slater/KPCC
Bins for promotional materials are stored in the basement of the Gamble House.
Grant Slater/KPCC
A period dress is on display in a bedroom at the Gamble House.
Grant Slater/KPCC
A copy of a book about Downton Abbey rests on a table in the Gamble House basement. Like this limited tour, the British drama features both the owners of the manor and the help.
Grant Slater/KPCC
A copy of Ladies Home Journal rests on a table in one of the bedrooms of the Gamble House. The homeowner wrote of meeting the magazine's publisher.
Grant Slater/KPCC
Photos in the basement show the Gamble House through the decades.
Grant Slater/KPCC
The kitchen of the Gamble House is part of the limited time upstairs-downstairs tour. The kitchen was designed to be an easy-to-clean environment.
Grant Slater/KPCC
The living space for the help in The Gamble House had different furnishings, less luxurious wood and smaller spaces than the main rooms of the house.
Grant Slater/KPCC

The Gamble House in Pasadena is known worldwide as an exemplar of the Craftsman style. It's an unpretentious bungalow designed by architect brothers Greene & Greene for the Gamble family of Proctor & Gamble fame.

Thousands of visitors walk through each year, but there's always been a part of the house that's been shut off to them: the servants' quarters. Until now.

The servants quarters are usually not on display because they're inhabited by two USC School of Architecture students most of the year. The students usually vacate in August, and this year with renovations closing part of the house, curators decided it was a perfect time to let the public into this exclusive area.

But those thinking the Gamble House servants lived like those in PBS's hit show "Downton Abbey" will learn otherwise.

"The service spaces were designed as much for use as for beauty," said Gamble House curator Anne Mallek. "There was a real detail in the servants space as there is in the rest of the house. The materials change, but they're still attentive to how the space was being used by the servants."

For instance, the Greene Brothers designed the house using different kinds of wood for the daily areas and that of the servants. The family rooms had more expensive materials like white cedar, mahogany and teak, while the servants quarters were built with maple and sugarpine.

"It's coding, so these are social codes in a way, but their rooms as well are very functional," said said Mallek. "There's enough space for a bed and a chest of drawers and there are windows for light and ventilation."

The original owners of the house, Mary and David Gamble, came to Pasadena in the early 1900s, as many midwestern and easterners did, to escape the harsh winters. They decided to commission a vacation house in 1907 and employ local architects Charles and Henry Greene, who had already done a number of houses in the area.

"The Gamble House is really one of the great works of the Greene brothers," said Mallek.

The Upstairs Downstairs Gamble House tour runs through August 18. Get tickets here.